Paul Krugman: Research Fail Made 'Prominent People Look Foolish'

Paul Krugman: Research Fail Made 'Prominent People Look Foolish'
Nobel Prize-winning Economist Paul Krugman, professor of international trade and economics at Princeton University, pauses during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Krugman discussed the performance of bonds, Fed monetary policy, and the U.S. economy compared with that of Japan. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Nobel Prize-winning Economist Paul Krugman, professor of international trade and economics at Princeton University, pauses during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Krugman discussed the performance of bonds, Fed monetary policy, and the U.S. economy compared with that of Japan. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In normal times, an arithmetic mistake in an economics paper would be a complete nonevent as far as the wider world was concerned. But in April 2013, the discovery of such a mistake--actually, a coding error in a spreadsheet, coupled with several other flaws in the analysis--not only became the talk of the economics profession, but made headlines. Looking back, we might even conclude that it changed the course of policy.

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